Kolam - Creating A Design at your Doorstep

This is the one I drew for Monday.

This one I drew for today - Tuesday.

Kolam is a Tamil word for drawing a pleasing design in front of your doorstep. In the northern India it is called Rangoli in which color powder is used. In one of my older posts I had written why a kolam is drawn.

It gives me a lot of pleasure to draw a design every morning. Its a ritual among us to decorate our front yard through a kolam which is drawn with fine rice flour or lime powder or a chalk piece.

I asked a mason to fix a black granite slab at the doorstep just so that the kolam looks brighter than when drawn on a mosaic floor.

Early mornings are reserved for sweeping, mopping and creating an interesting design on the wet black granite slab with a wet chalk. This gives me a brighter result.

I don't plan any design. As I draw it takes shape. It is a free hand though designs which are traditional are repeated on certain days.
I go by the numbers or dieties attached with the navagrahas - the nine planets for each day of the week.

Sun - sun-like spikes design or a sunflower for Sundays.

Moon - on Mondays - usually a design based on the lotus or any beautiful flower or any beautiful pattern as moon is a personification of the goddess mother.

Mars - a personification of Lord Subramania-muruga-arumugam. I draw a six-sided pattern on Tuesdays. See the photo for today's kolam has a six-petalled design.

Mercury - Anything goes for Wednesday but as it is the planet which represents Lord Vishnu, whose consort is Maha lakshmi, it could be about flowers.

Jupiter or Guru for Thursday - Anything goes for this day so I give myself total freedom to draw any fancy design.

Venus on Friday. It's got to be very traditional like a lotus design or a square plus some curves on top to make it attractive.

Saturn on saturday - 8 is the number associated with saturn, my designs are basically ones in which 8 lines or dots predominates.

I have attached two pictures taken on Monday and Tuesday's patterns in this blog. Shall try to capture a picture each day and upload it for viewing. Though I am not an artist, I take pride in putting my best effort each day. It all depends on my mood that morning. And I just love the rural or rustic designs with simple lines and zig-zags with dots to highlight the pattern.


Cheers.

Mahalakshmi

The Cockroach and Me

My early morning routine is to open the main door of the flat,
sweep the tiny space which has an embedded black granite stone in front of our door,
sprinkle some water,
mop the black granite stone and draw a kolam (more on kolam in my next blog).
A kolam is called rangoli in the north. A kolam is a symmetric pattern drawn on the floor in chalk or with a paste of rice flour.
This is an early morning ritual in most of the south Indian homes.

As I opened the door, armed with a broom to sweep, a cockroach which was hiding near the threshold ran helter skelter to save itself from an imminent attack. When it tried to come inside the house, I tried to broom it away outside. The roach and me were trying to outdo each other with a lot of song and dance about it. I succeeded in sweeping it as far away from our door as possible without killing it. In the mileu, I fell on both knees :D
I was thankful I din't break a bone in this early morning amateur dance recital.

Despite our sealing all the entry points and fixing fine nets on all windows, some do find their way in, as we live on a ground floor apartment. I tolerate them as creatures who have equal right to live and share space on earth yet I wish they chose some other place and not my house! They are unwelcome guests.

They keep coming back even as we keep taking some pest control measures from time to time. Perhaps that is why they are called 'pests'.

Mahalakshmi.

Its Dasera

Dasera is a 10 day festival which starts from tomorrow - (8th Oct.,2010)
Its happy Dasera.

Its Hindu tradition, a festival, a celebration of the many forms of the Goddess mother.

The celebrations begin when the Planets Sun and Moon meet (around the same degrees -this is the new moon day)in the zodiac of Virgo or Kanya/Kanni each year. It is called the Mahamalaya amavasya. The next 10 days' period marks the beginning of this festival called Dasera.

In the South, especially among South Indians, dolls of all kinds, shapes, colors and sizes are brought out and displayed. Some dolls are passed down through generations and are precious treasures of the past.
Steps are readied and covered with silks and dolls arranged on each step. The steps are always odd in number, like 5, 7, 9 and so on. A lamp is lit and a colorful chalk powder decoration of a beautiful pattern known as Rangoli is drawn which occupies a special place on the floor just below the first step.
One could say this is predominantly a ladies' function. It offers all ladies an opportunity to display their silks (sarees, etc) and jewellery when they visit the houses they are invited to during the entire 10 day period. Usually the host requests the guests to sing a song and it is a devotional one in praise of the Goddess mother.
The Dasera's 9 days are divided into 3 parts in which each of HER form is worshipped and celebrated. Those 3 forms are Mahalakshmi, Saraswati and Durga whose main attributes are wealth, knowledge and courage, respectively. Each Goddess is invoked for 3 days.
The 10th and final day is called as Dasami aka Vijaya dasami.

It is indeed a very colorful festival.

I and my younger sister used to have a whale of a time planning for Dasera days ahead. We used to hunt for rare dolls, we would learn new devotional songs on the Goddess, stay up late nights to decorate the steps in unique ways. The best would be to draw portraits of Gods and Goddesses which my youngest sister is very good at. Many people used to flock to see the colorful rangoli at our house. They would be lifelike figures. I still remember the Radha-Krishna, a beautiful dancing girl, Mahavishnu-Mahalakshmi...
A huge portion in the room would be set aside to draw the rangoli and fill. Then we would decorate it with stardust or chamki which is available at Hyderabad easily.

There was so much merry making in singing songs in unison, receiving relatives and friends, serving home made fruit juices, preparing the famed 'sundal' made of steamed lentils of different kinds of on different days, in selecting the best saree with matching blouse to wear each and every day. Ah! Those were the golden days.
We separated because she had to settle down in Ottawa after marriage. She continues to arrange dolls every year and invite a minimum of 100 ladies to her house for Dasera.
Another sister who lives in Chicago also celebrates it the same way by arranging dolls and inviting not less than a 150 guests.
My eldest sister and I do not keep dolls but we celebrate it with the same devotion.
After my marriage I discontinued keeping the dolls on show. I celebrate Dasera by singing a few chosen songs for the occassion alongwith the regular recitation of the Lalitha Sahasranamam.

May the mother goddess bless us with knowledge, courage and wealth of all kinds. May we all succeed in whatever we are attempting to do.

Mahalakshmi.